


The Arya x Jaqen Drabbles

by theelusiveflamingo



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Harry Potter Setting, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Nazi Germany, Braavos, F/M, Gen, Underage But Whatever, nymeria - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-19
Updated: 2015-11-15
Packaged: 2018-03-24 20:32:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 17
Words: 6,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3783448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theelusiveflamingo/pseuds/theelusiveflamingo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A compilation of all my Arya/Jaqen work that's either a drabble or just for whatever reason doesn't feel like a stand-alone fic.</p><p>(All A/J drabbles that have been posted in <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/1092053">Drabbles of Ice and Fire</a> have been removed and re-posted here)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Breathplay

He has come to trust a lovely girl with his life, and to bring him to that line on the edges of it and then back again, leaving nothing behind.  He has come to need—no,  _crave_ —the solid weight of her small fingers around his neck, the weight of the power of what she could do but the knowledge of what she would never do unless he asked it of her.

The most lovely girl takes him there on the murkiest, coolest Braavosi nights, and as she wields her power her stare locks into his and the candlelight makes her light eyes look dark. Her hand tightens around his neck as she moves atop him, and it’s as though there are many Aryas, one moving up and down, one looking deep into his eyes, one showing him the Gift and then bringing him back, showing him the Gift and then bringing him back…

His release comes quickly and lingers long, and on a lovely girl’s face there is a flicker of a smile.

 


	2. Swirls of blood; Modern AU

"Harder," she said, reaching around and slapping his soapy ass, and he listened because he always listened to her when they were naked. His arm tightened around her waist and his fingers found their way into her mouth and he fucked her twice as fast then, so fast she felt her toes curl against the narrow edge of the tub where she'd propped her foot. His breath was loud even with the water running, and with her eyes flickering open-shut, his red hair in the drain looked like swirls of blood.

 

 


	3. Lessons in Subtlety; Modern AU

It’s so late there’s hardly any cars going by on Route 1, so late they’re the only two customers in the diner. It’s 3:30 AM, and in the dead of night either nothing happens or _Something Happens_ , so Arya keeps her eye on the brand-new motorcycle parked outside. 

It’s hers, her very own, bought with money Arya’s surprised Jaqen has, and it’s a BMW (though she can’t read the letters without hearing Jaqen saying  _Bayerische Motoren Werke_  like he’s the most pretentious and sexy asshole who claims to be from Germany but is he, really, in the universe), and she doesn’t even have her license yet, so she has to keep an eye on it, because how shitty would it be if her brand-new fancy motorcycle got stolen before she could even ride it legally?

She sees a figure coming toward her in the reflection of the diner in the window glass and wonders if it’s Jaqen coming back from his phone call, but no, it’s just the waitress asking her if she’d like another refill, honey?  Arya nods and smiles and watches the coffee pour out of the pot and into her empty cup.  When Jaqen finally brings her home, she’ll be too wired to sleep, but it’s worth it to be awake and alert for every minute they spend together.

She’s about to reach for the milk when she feels something brush against her under the table.  She rolls her eyes and kicks her boots out in frustration, but her heart’s suddenly beating fast and her fingers are clammy and shaky in a way that has nothing to do with caffeine. 

“How’d you get back without me seeing?  I was  _watching_.”

He rolls her shirt up just a bit and laughs against her stomach.  The feeling of his breath on her sends jumpy heat pooling right there between her legs.  She kicks again.

“Stop laughing and teach me.  I want to know!  I’m ready.”

“Hmmm,” he said.  “Hmmm.”

“What does that mean?”  She tries to pour milk into her coffee, but she feels his slender fingers tug at her waistband and the milk overflows and spills.  It’s like a stupid metaphor for how this weird guy who carries multiple knives makes her feel.

“Right now…A girl should proceed as normal.”

“What does  _that_ mean?  Normal?  Are you serious?”

“A girl wants to learn things.  Tonight a man will help her practice subtlety.  If a girl would like.”  She can feel him smiling.  Literally.

His tongue works over her slowly, way too slowly.  She rips open a sugar packet.  His tongue dips inside her and her toes are already curling in her boots.

She grabs a clump of his hair, imagining how the red and white look tangled in her hand.  She loves how this looks, but she doesn’t dare peek now.

He tugs her elbow and closes his lips around her clit, and she lets go of his hair and grabs her coffee cup because the slow way he sucks at her drives her fucking  _crazy._

“Subtlety, or a man will stop.”

“You’re  _evil_ ,” she breathes, and opens her legs just a little wider under the table.

 


	4. Celebrity/Fan AU

She doesn’t know why he has to pose as the new bassist for a folk-metal band and she doesn’t know why this assignment has to be so long.  Someday she’ll make him tell her, once she figures out the best way to do that, anyway.

But it could be worse, she thinks every time she comes back to Aunt Lyanna’s at 6 AM with her ears ringing and her heart beating happy-slow and fast at once.  Folk metal, well, all those songs about direwolf ghosts and the Night’s King and ancient Boltons flaying men during a year of winter nights are more Jon and Sam’s thing than hers, but at least Jaqen’s not posing as some whiny douche with an acoustic guitar and a lot of stupid feelings.  She’s happy to get into the clubs where they play for free without the bouncer even checking her ID, and it feels good to stand there as the crowds of bearded men surge past her and around her, something stronger than her steel-toed boots anchoring her to her spot.

One time the crowd surges and she’s up in a sea of strong hands being carried towards the front, and it’s the wild-haired bassist who reaches her first, grasping her by the wrists as she slings her legs onto the stage.  His sparkly blue bass thumps in between them as he kisses her on her sweaty cheek.  Some people near the front hoot and the lead guitarist goes into his third solo but Arya can still hear the bassist, (her bassist, she doesn’t want to admit thinking) mumbling “Lovely girl” against her ear.

Arryk the bass tech winks at her from the wings, and she pulls away from the bass and the bassist and walks off the stage.  She doesn’t give two shits about being classy, but she still likes how Arryk always manages to get her backstage before the show ends, quiet as a shadow.

"I remembered to get regular M&Ms for you this time, not peanut," he’s saying, "and let me tell you, I fucking heard about it all night from the guys, they’re like, ‘I can’t perform without my peanut M&Ms,’ and I’m just like—"

"Well, you could’ve gotten both,” Arya says, hardly listening as Arryk rambles, because she’s thinking, she’s thinking about how even when Jaqen has fried-looking long black hair and Thenn tattoos spiraling up his face and ears gauged a little too much to look good, he looks at her the same way, he touches her the same way.  She’s realizing, every time she looks down and sees a black head between her legs instead of a red-and-white one, every time it’s thin lips breathing against her ear and deep brown eyes that stare into hers and then flickeropenclosed openclosed as she rides him so hard in these clubs’ nasty back rooms that she hurts the next day, well, it’s not that weird-haired, pretty-lipped, blue-eyed face she has these feelings for, it’s Jaqen, just Jaqen, whoever the hell he is.


	5. für das Leben bezahlen; Nazi Germany AU

She was to be no one of note to him, just another young girl in Berlin going about her business despite the war, but she’s become someone to him, and she can’t be.

She hates the sight of their uniforms on the street because of how they make her feel; it’s what he wears when he comes to her, and what he leaves pooled on the floor of her flat when he takes her in his arms and carries her to bed and calls her Little Wolf while he kisses her to moaning with his full, smirking lips.

She’d thought he’d smell like death, her Oberschütze H’ghar, but he just smells like soap and the starch of his uniform, he smells as pure as the consonants of his native tongue suddenly sound as he pleads  _bitte, bitte_  while her nails dig into his shoulders and she rides him until they both feel like everyone and like no one at once.

Each time she hears him speak, she lets the sound swirl and sink into her mind; the authenticity of her German is growing, her reports back to the Service more fruitful.

But there are times when he cradles her in his arms and strokes the shell of her ear after she’s come and come and come again and he whispers about how he sometimes feels only death can pay for life, and she wishes she doesn’t have to listen, and hates herself for never wanting to stop.


	6. Happy Birthday; Modern AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ;)
> 
> for Vana

It's exactly midnight when her text sound goes off and there's a video message waiting for her. He isn't even in her time zone tonight, but that's how A Man is. He's always in the right place at the right time. As soon as she's hitting play she's pausing it again, tucking her phone into her pocket and ducking into the bathroom. She sinks to the floor with her back against the locked door and stares at the phone screen. A Man's nicely-fitting black pants are undone and his stupid perfect arm muscles are flexing hard like he’s been at it for a while. She bites her lip and he bites his own, smirking. She’s going to punch him in his stupid face when she sees him next. Since when does A Man send videos from his phone, anyway? And why isn’t she there with him? Her heart beats faster as A Man’s back arches and his eyes close for a moment. “Happy birthday, lovely girl,” he whispers as he comes, and then the screen goes black. Damn him. She plays it again.

 

 


	7. Mafia AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Man, I wrote this WAY back in the day--December 2013--for an inbox 3-sentence-fic prompt.

"A man hears them saying inside that a girl cannot do the job," Jaqen says in their usual spot back behind the Fiorentino’s dumpsters, smelling gross like the restaurant’s kitchen and its grease and sauce and Sterno even though his shift’s been over for a few hours.

"Fuck them," Arya says, grinding the heel of her Docs into the lit cigarette she’s tossed onto the ground as she does, "I can do the job, better n’ faster than those fat fucks can, too."

"A man agrees," Jaqen murmurs, slipping a Glock into her palm.


	8. Flashcards; University Universe

Suddenly her life’s full of surprises, and it’s good, because that’s what Arya likes—surprises, challenges, things to think about, things to do.  

It turns out that grad student Jaqen H’ghar—her grad student Jaqen H’ghar, she thinks sometimes with a stupid smile teasing the corners of her mouth—is fluent in Braavosi (as well as Lorathi, the Common Tongue and High Valyrian, and his Pentoshi’s not half bad, either.)  And Arya’s taking Braavosi 110 this semester, and it’s hard.  So she asks him down to her room to help her with her flash cards.  Once, twice.  Then she realizes she doesn’t need an excuse to ask him over.  He’ll come anyway.  He wants to see her.

"A girl does not need these," he says on his fifth visit, pointing at her stack of 200 flashcards.

"Seriously?  Even with them I got a C on the first test.  I never get Cs.”  Arya flings one of her big blue pillows at him.  ”Either help me with my Braavosi or get off my bed.”

Jaqen grabs her stuffed wolf, named Nymeria after her real dog back at home.  He looks weirdly natural sitting cross-legged on her bed like they’re about to tell secrets at a sleepover or something.  ”A man holds Nymeria hostage until a girl listens.”

"You’re such a little shit," she says to him, but the grin on her face makes it more than clear that she doesn’t mean it.

"A man is many things," he says, grinning back.  "But a man is serious.  These cards distract a girl from hearing and thinking.  A girl must hear and think Braavosi, to hear how the sounds relate.  A girl must hear Braavos in her Braavosi.”

"I mean, that sounds like more fun than flashcards," Arya says.  "But how do I do that?"

"A man reads from a girl’s study guide."  Their fingers brush on purpose as she hands it to him, and then his blue eyes meet hers, and Arya feels warm.  "A girl watches a man’s lips closely, and then tries to make the sounds he does.  Then a girl learns."

He draws his knees to his chest, his long toes wiggling on her blanket, and Arya snorts.  ”That sounds less like teaching and more like hitting on me.”

But he looks serious, and Arya almost feels bad for him.  He can’t help that he’s weird.  She doesn’t think she’s ever met anyone from Lorath, and she wonders if there’s some kind of cultural difference going on, or if he’s just…

"A girl will try.  A girl must trust that a man knows what he is doing.  A man wants to help a lovely girl."

Lovely.  Arya never thought she’d want to be called lovely, but maybe…maybe it was all about who said it, and how.

"Okay, fine," Arya says, and she scoots up to him until their foreheads are nearly touching.  It’ll be hard to watch his lips without remembering what it was like to kiss him the first time, in his room, and the second time and the third time and the—

He begins,and Arya’s pretty sure she’s going to like studying this way.


	9. Weakness

A girl is too clever and quick to be caught.  A girl wears the faces of many as well as she wears her own fine bones and grey eyes; she will not be so foolish as to give herself away.  Yet as a girl glides through the alleys with a man in her cloak of darkness, a girl walks two steps ahead of him so a man may see how her excited fingers play with the knife in her hands.  How a girl plays with it—her fingers dancing across the hilt, her fist holding it tight as her fingers worship.

A man (for the Lorathi humility of which a girl is fond has come to suit the way a man feels in the service of He of Many Faces) does not need to accompany a girl tonight, and it is rare that two Faceless Men would go together to do what must be done.  Yet sometimes, a man is weak. To watch a girl do what she does is his weakness.

The man is known for relieving himself in a nearby alley after he drinks himself dull-witted at his favorite inn, and it is there that a girl and a man find him, and it is there that a girl does her work.  She performs the task nimbly, the way she has done almost everything a man has seen since he met a girl on the Kingsroad long ago.  A girl has grown since then, but she is still the same.

As a girl pulls her blade from the man’s flesh and he drops to his knees with a grunt, so too does a man, though he does it in prayer.  How easy it is to imagine his girl, one day, giving him the gift in this way.  A man would let her.

“What are you doing?” a girl whispers, though she steps on his toes with her boots as she does.  “You know we can’t just stay here.”

Sometimes, a man is weak, and to watch a girl do what she does is his weakness, and so a man takes a girl’s cheeks in his hands and brings his lips to hers.

“You couldn’t wait til we were back?” a girl sighs against a man’s mouth, but a girl’s heart, beating as fast as his, betrays her words.


	10. Photo Texts; Modern AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> set in Egg Baby universe.

A girl goes out to parties, sometimes, and at these parties she drinks, because that is what people her age do when they cannot legally purchase alcohol.  A man does not judge her.  A man could not and would not.  She is strong, but small-framed, and liquor runs through her fast, and had a man grown up here, where laws are strict and penalties high, he would probably do the same as her.  But a man grew up in another time, in another place, and he faintly remembers sitting on the steps of the temple with the older acolytes at daybreak, drinking beer after beer and watching the sun rise.  A man had been even younger then than a girl is now.

When a girl is out at her parties sometimes she will send things to a man.  Pictures.  A girl sends pictures to a man.  And even though a girl’s phone is expensive and a man uses a series of burners, all clamshell in shape, her pictures come through well enough on a man’s tiny screen to distract him far more than he’s ever let anything distract him before.

Tonight a man stands at his sink with the water running scalding hot, washing his job off his new pair of gloves, when the new phone beeps, and a man thinks.  A man knows a girl is at a friend’s house tonight.  A man lets his willpower shatter.  A man turns off the water and dries his hands on his pants and reaches for the phone.

A man has seen other girls’ photos, in the past.  What a man likes about the photos of his lovely girl is that she does not try.  A girl does not need to pretend for a man, to show off for a man.  Everything a girl is is enough.  A girl is bare-chested in the photo, her hair hanging over her shoulders, half-smiling at a man.  A man needs to sit down.  A man feels blood rushing away from the parts of him that help him stand.

A girl likes when a man writes back, and a man does sometimes, when he is able.  Another, a man writes to his lovely girl tonight, and waits.  A man undoes his belt, but does nothing more.  A man enjoys the agony.  A man enjoys the patience.

A girl sends another, of her with her pants off and her blue underwear showing, and a man shifts in his seat.  He catches himself biting his lip.  Another, he says, wondering what a girl will do.

A girl’s face pops up on a man’s phone, grinning, holding up her slender middle finger.

And a man grins back, though a girl cannot see, and then a man is throwing down his phone and fumbling with his pants in a way that is at odds with his years of capability and training.  A man’s self-control is impeccable.  A man can…fuck all night, to phrase it in the vulgar way, if he desires.  But once a man snaps, he snaps, and he is lost.

A man is fierce with himself; he barely has time to grab a napkin so he doesn’t dirty one of his few clean shirts before one of a man’s boots is propped up on the table, one of a man’s hands is wrapped around the painful throb of his cock, and the other is knotted in a man’s own hair pulling so hard his lips tremble, the way a girl does to a man, the way a man likes it best.

A man is lost and it feels over in seconds like a man is very young again.  A man is hard and the callouses of his hand feel good enough.  A man’s mind is full of a lovely girl—of her photos, yes, but part of his job is to instantly call to mind the most minute details of everything, and so there a girl is in his thoughts.  The ways a girl smells, the different tones of her voice, the ways a girl moves and the way she had looked when she held one of a man’s knives for the first time, how a man had felt a certain sadness but he had also understood.  The way her hair looks spread across his pillows, the way she steals his blanket and thrashes against him as he holds her through her strange dreams.

His lovely girl is there with a man as a man tugs at his hair, his toes curling in his boots, and releases with an exhale that sounds almost vocalized, almost like the sound of an A.

Afterwards a man is still lost, so lost that he sends his lovely girl another message.  A girl might not read it until the morning, but still a man types it out quickly and sends before he loses his nerve.  It is a very intimate message, the most intimate a man can think of, written in the most intimate way a man knows.  It begins with the letter I.


	11. Funfetti; Modern AU

The House of Black and White is not a place for celebration, in the traditional sense of the word.  You can go there to venerate and accept Death and the gods, which of course, can be thought of as a celebration, but as far as parties go, well…they don’t happen much in those shadowy, whispery halls.

Which is why a man is nervous as he checks the sweet-smelling treats baking in the oven.  The whole thing has confused a man.  A man can switch faces the way other men might change from wet socks to dry, and a man can kill another man and make it look like a natural death, but when it comes to this thing called baking?  A man is lost,  _beyond_ lost, and he thanks the gods yet again that Jon agreed to help him out.  Begrudgingly, of course, for Jon does not quite trust a man yet, and a man cannot blame him.  If a man knew what it was like to have a sibling, or any sort of family, a man might feel the same.

But all a man knows are his brothers in the Faceless Men, and a girl, a man knows a lovely girl, and so a man eagerly went to the store to get the ingredients for these Funfetti cupcakes Jon had suggested, and a man respectfully used Arya’s spare key to open the door to her apartment (a man has many ways of picking locks and less obtrusive ways of entering a locked room, yes, but a man would never do that to his lovely girl), and a man began to grease pans and crack eggs and open tricky plastic bags of colorful mix with the knife tucked into his boot.

The hour is late, and the kitchen is messier than a man’s job as a Faceless Man has been in quite some time.  The timer beeps.  The cake is done.  A man’s hair is sticking sweatily to his face.  A man has fine white flour all over his black pants and black shirt.  A man still has to frost the cake.  A girl will be home soon from fencing, or is tonight kickboxing?  A man normally knows where his lovely girl is, but tonight this cake has made him lose his mind.

A man frantically slathers frosting on the cake.  He pushes his hair back from his forehead over and over.  A man has frosting in his hair, now, and a key is clicking into the lock and a door is opening.  A man scrambles for a knife, a plate.

“Happy nameday,” he says breathlessly to a girl, holding out a very lumpy piece of cake.  “A man tried his best.”

“How’d you know I like Fun–I shouldn’t even ask,” a girl says, and she takes the cake in her hand and takes a bite, not bothering to use a fork.  “Not bad,” she says with her mouth full.  “It’s better than the rest of your cooking.”

A man rolls his eyes at a girl.

“You have frosting in your hair.”

“A girl has frosting on her face,” a man says, and he leans forward to help a girl clean it off.

 


	12. Kiss in the Rain

They dare not do this inside, not in their cells in the temple, not in one of the many shadowy crevices or twisted staircases.  Whenever one of them feels daring, the other feels they ought not risk it.

Instead, they slip on their cloaks and leave in the early grey light of dawn. They leave separately, yet Arya feels she can still sense Jaqen’s presence in the hallway.  Maybe there’s an echo of his heartbeat in the cold stone walls.   _You’re being stupid.  Stop being stupid!_

But it’s hard not to be stupid when the morning is rainy and damp, yet again, and the dampness is almost more bone-piercing than the cold winds that blew down from the Wall when she was that little girl, far away, long ago. It’s hard not to be stupid when she shivers, just for a moment, and long arms wrap tight around her.

“Don’t shiver, lovely girl,” says the silky voice in her ear.  And then they’re off, trying to splash through the puddles as quietly as they can.  Sometimes they make it far away from the House of Black and White, but some mornings are hungrier than others, and Arya can feel that in Jaqen this morning.  He is tense, his breathing already labored, and at one moment when he turns and she does not, he collides with her and she feels how hard his cock is against her side.   _That’s the easiest way to tell_.

They tuck into an alley just a block away from where they came from.  Jaqen presses her against the wall.  The dampness will seep into her cloak and leave her cold, but it does not matter.  He is breathing heavily now, kissing up the insides of her thighs and undoing her breeches.  They pause, hearing footsteps outside the alley, but they’re the uneven footsteps of a drunk, and so Jaqen stands, his breeches already unlaced and his cock jutting out between them.  He runs his hand across her waist, grazing the hilt of the knife she wears there.  Then he scoops her up, wrapping her legs around him, and thrusts into her.

He moans, a sound Arya almost never hears because he’s so  _quiet,_ but today he moans as he slides into her easily, then out, in and out, in and out and  _in_ and out and  _in_ and out and–Her head is lolling to the side, her eyes already flickering shut.  She’d hate how he makes her lose all her awareness, but with him, it feels right.

“Lovely girl,” he pants.  “A lovely girl should pull her hood back.”

She does, the rain splashing down on her sweaty cheeks, and he stills his hips and comes in for a kiss.  His cock twitches inside of her.  She slips her tongue into his mouth and tastes spices on his.

 


	13. Five Sentence Fic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> based on the inbox prompt "Arya was going to kill him. Kill him, but kiss him first."

And it would be all right.  A man would die seeing the grey light of Braavos in a girl’s pale eyes.

But this is when a man awakes, as he does every night, with dawn’s first light lifting the black of the night sky and a familiar ache in his dream-hardened cock.

A man reaches down to relieve himself of his need before a girl rises, but as always, his motions stir his alert girl from her sleep.

“Did I try to kill you again?” she mumbles, her hand reaching down to move with his.

 


	14. Ten One-Sentence Prompts

1.  _(angst)_ He has changed his face, but walking away with his boots squelching in the mud of the Riverlands, he realizes with every step away from her that that  _something_ in his chest continues to ache.

2.  _(AU)_ He’s a seventh-year with a strange fire in his icy eyes and she’s only a first-year, but when he tells her he can show her all around Knockturn Alley and keep her  _safe_ while they do it, she doesn’t waste a moment hesitating.

3.  _(crack)_ “Pfft, you could have just  _told_ me,” Arya said, pointing at the small stack of dusty, yellowing, gay leather porn magazines with long German words written across the cover as she continued, “it’s not like I’d judge you for this, it looks hot.”

4.  _(future fic)_ When Mercy dreams she dreams of a life not her own, of a direwolf roaming a burnt and dying wood, of a grey and warm holdfast under grey and cold skies, and the scent of ginger and cloves everywhere, everywhere, even in the deepest of dreams.

5.  _(first time)_ A man does not know how old a girl is, but why should it matter?

6.  _(fluff)_ The day they switch places, Arya driving the BMW with Jaqen’s strong arms holding tight around her waist, is the day Arya knows he’ll be in her life for longer than she’d expected.

7.  _(humor)_ The first time she got  _A Man’s_ pants down, she couldn’t stop laughing—“I can’t believe the carpet matches the drapes!”

8.  _(hurt/comfort)_ It’s something a man has never had before, a lovely girl who worries about his wounds and scars even as she strokes them with wonder.

9.  _(smut)_ There’s always a point every time they fuck when Jaqen’s eyes flicker closed and he bites at his lip and he grabs Arya’s hips and pulls him to her faster, faster—but no matter what, he tangles her in his arms afterwards, and kisses her lips over and over with reverence.

10.  _(UST)_ She watches his lean, scarred body down in the steam of the Russian and Turkish Baths, watches as he takes the oak leaves and beats himself with them with his eyes open and focused, each swing of his arm as graceful as the marks the leaves make on his back.

 


	15. Bubbles; Modern AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> prompted by crossingwinter: "very specific au prompt: arya and jaqen fill the fountains in washington square park with laundry detergent, turning them into giant puffballs of foam."

When the M pulls into the Myrtle Avenue station after 25 minutes of waiting, there’s something blue about the black sky.  Arya points this out to Jaqen, and he takes her soft-gloved hand in his leather-gloved hand as they walk into the glaring lights of the empty train car.

“A girl notices much,” he says, giving her hand a squeeze.  "It is as though she has the eyes of a wolf.“

"I’m gonna wish I never told you about my wolf dreams,” Arya yawns.  She’s too tired to talk much, and the early morning chill and stillness feels like a drug in her veins.  She and Jaqen spill into one of the two-person benches at the end of the car, tucking their bulky backpacks under the seat, and take out her phone to continue listening to the audiobook of Rilke’s poetry read in the German original that Jaqen’s put on there.  He gets the headphone in his right ear, Arya gets hers in her left, and she pushes play and he snuggles against her.

“Eight stops,” he whispers. “A girl may rest.  A man will watch her.”

Arya yawns again.  ”You mean watch over me?  Or watch me?”

“A man means both.  Always.”

“Creep.”  Arya loves the sound of the German poetry, and her German’s getting better, but it’s not good enough yet for the rocking of the train and the clunking of the wheels over the rails to  _not_ make it all sound like part of a strange, guttural lullaby.  Her family would not be happy to know she was falling asleep on the subway in Bushwick before sunrise, but her family doesn’t know everything: Bushwick’s not like what they think, and with her and Jaqen combined, nothing bad can possibly happen to them.

She’s asleep before the next station.

Jaqen nudges her awake just before the train pulls into West 4th, and they gather their backpacks and walk the few blocks to Washington Square Park quietly.  The sun’s not out yet, but the sky is getting bluer.  It’s cool, but not cold, and some birds are singing.

They hop over the fence without checking to see if the gates are unlocked.  Sometimes, Arya thinks, it’s more fun to hop over fences, and something she likes about Jaqen is that he agrees.  His long, thin legs are made for it, anyway.

It’s weird to think that this is what a real, honest killer-for-hire who loves Rilke and glam rock (which is, in itself, weird to think about) is choosing to do with his time, with  _her_ , but Arya enjoys weird.  She’s not afraid of weird, and it’s why she’s opening up the first of many boxes of detergent they’d bought at Family Dollar yesterday and pouring it into the fountain.  She would have thought they’d turn off the water while the park was closed, but the fountain is running, and filling with bubbles as she and Jaqen empty out their boxes.

“A man wants to play in it,” Jaqen mumbles, and he’s pulling off his jacket and gloves and shirt and tossing aside and jumping into the foam.

“Watch out!” Arya cries, pulling off her shirt to join him.  She jumps in, landing on top of Jaqen and knocking him onto his ass.

He sends a rush of soapy cold fountain water splashing toward her.  ”If a girl intends to get a man soaked, a man must do the same to a girl.”

Arya splashes him back.  There’s a dot of suds on his nose, and his nipples are as pink and hard as she’s ever seen them.  They look like the scar tissue he’s got all over his body.  He splashes her again.  

“You can splash me all you want.  I don’t get cold.”

“A man gets cold,” Jaqen says, in a voice so pitiful Arya decides not to ask why he went into the fountain in the first place.  Instead, she gives him a hug, melding his slippery, shirtless body with her own.  The red side of his hair is full of bubbles, and she is sure she looks the same.  They’ll have to clear out before the sun is all the way up, but for now it’s just her and Jaqen, rocking back and forth to the sound of the fountain.

 


	16. Nymeria; Braavos AU

Sometimes when a man comes home to his cold, dark rooms there is a welcome friend waiting for him.  Her name is Nymeria, and she is sleek but her fur is soft and her claws are sharp and she pants when he comes in, her eyes gleaming up at him in the dark. A dog is useful, but a wolf, a wolffeels like a _companion_  to a man.  She licks a man’s fingers and stands on her hind legs to dig her claws into a man’s shoulders.  A man does not notice the sting.  She licks a man’s face and waits impatiently for him to light a fire in the fireplace and bring some warmth to the cold room.  Then she tackles a man to the floor and licks a man’s face raw and climbs upon him.  A wolf’s claws dig into a man’s thighs.  A wolf’s fur is humid and warm, hotter than the fire.  A wolf howls.  A man, so accustomed to wonder and horror, to the world and its ways, shivers every time.

A man drifts into strange, smoky dreams with the wolf by his side.

Hours later a girl returns to his rooms.  It is raining outside; a girl sheds her wet robes. A man sits, leaning against the wall. A girl sits atop him, her legs straddling his own.  A girl and a man do not speak.  She slices through a man’s robes with her knife; pulls the scraps off with her teeth.  A girl is not hairy like a wolf, but a girl is sharp and sinew, and as she traces the fresh claw-marks and the old scars, a man takes her small breasts in his calloused hands and kisses them til her eyes close.  A girl touches him still, breathing harder and harder as her fingers wander over the raised and stinging marks.  A man replaces his mouth with his fingers and buries his face in the crook of a girl’s neck. A man does not smell Braavos.  A man smells forest and fur, stone and smoke, wind and snow.


	17. Polyphony; University Universe

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tagged by [crossingwinter](http://archiveofourown.org/users/crossingwinter) to write a 5-minute drabble. No editing allowed!

They don’t have much in the way of winter traditions in Lorath, Jaqen tells her one night, as they sit on his bed listening to his strange music and watch snow swirl in the sky outside their dorm.  It’s always somewhat cold and dreary in Lorath: their seasons are less rainy and more rainy, less windy and more windy.  Arya can’t imagine Lorath.  She wishes Jaqen would show her photos, but he didn’t bring any with him, and the internet doesn’t have many photos of the place either, which is just  _weird._

Arya can’t imagine Winterfell without sledding, apple cider, and asking Robb to teach her how to make the perfect snowball, and she tells Jaqen this.

“A girl hears this music?”  Jaqen says.  “A girl should close her eyes.”

Arya does.  Jaqen’s hand curls around hers.  His fingers are thin but strong, warm as they always are.

“What does a girl hear?”

In the strange sounds, all those voices joined as one in ways she’s never heard before, Arya hears wind whistling through the air.  She hears water crashing against rocks.  She hears cold empty space and a light grey sky.  She hears winter.  She doesn’t know how this music makes her feel all these things.  She wonders if Jaqen is… _magic_ , somehow.

It’s a stupid thought, she thinks.  But it stays with her.


End file.
